GONE

GONE…

Today felt different, cold, dark, lost, empty, broken, painful and closed.

“Life can be so unfair!” –My mother, who also was a second mother to him.

These are all thoughts and feelings I had when I woke up today, after receiving this news.  News that you never want to hear from the mouth of a father and a brother about a friend.

I sit right now, pen in my hand thinking that if I could let the ink flow onto this paper, all of this will suddenly pull a 180 turn and my heart will immediately stop hurting.

But still how do you cope and deal with a loss of a friend?  First, comes the ‘How?’, ‘Why?’, and ‘What?’ and they hit you hard right as the news drops.  You find that an emptiness hits you, for me it was like a ton of bricks.   I had known the empty was there because over the past few years because of outside interferences (time, schedule, work, etc.) lead this friendship into just random week to week Facebook status and likes.

The thing with a built friendship, is that it’s still there, true friendships find each other through the world and our hearts and never let go, even if the physical bodies aren’t near.

Actually, I had noticed more and more of these emptiness for a few weeks, there was even a remembrance Facebook post in which I went to his profile and dropped him a message about the good days of wrestling, so I felt that a reconnection needed to happen soon.  I found out that, it was going to be easier now to do so with the move up closer to family in a hospice.

It never happened.

Or did it, I sit here 24 hours later, I realize that I have reconnected to my friend.  Though, I didn’t reconnect face to face.  I know that he also can feel that indeed this friendship has connected and will last for eternity.

It’s a reconnection that has happened throughout today, social media can be the devil, but today it was a blessing.  As I had time I’d scroll through the newsfeed and see mutual friends, family and strangers (to me) talk about the memories of their fallen friend.  This memories then spawned my own memories and made me think the same good feelings we had together in those moments.

These remembrance pieces from everyone, had one key ingredient, it was that even though he’s gone, he’ll not be forgotten because everyone has him as a happy, positive, easy going and just a blast to be around kind of guy.  And this reminded me that these are the reason I become his friend in the first place, and it seems that’s why most did as well.

As the day rolled on, new memories scrolled through the day that began solemnly, slowly started to change.

It was beginning to become less cold, I could feel the warmth of his love all around me through the people that were sharing.

The darkness was being lit brighter from the shine that was his smile that so many people got to witness daily.

Different turned into knowing that we all are feeling the same way toward this wonder human being.

What started off as being lost, because of a fallen friend, turned to finder’s keepers and holding the memories of him tightly within.

And being empty and broken, started mending itself with all the memories of him in our hearts that will last a lifetime.

For some of use the painfulness is still there, and that’s okay, but after today it will slow heal and mend as we remember more and more memories of him, there is a lot of them out there, he was a part of so many lives, he made so many memories.

What will also heal our pain of this loss is knowing that he is no longer in pain, his suffering has finally found peace.   We will take the knowledge of his happy, positive self and know that he wouldn’t want use to pain over him for longer than we need too.

The world isn’t closed because we have lost him, the world has opened up more than ever.  We’ve seen that his adventure, beauty, positivity and strength has entered our lives, so that we can live our lives as we know he lived his.

Life may be unfair, some people may be taken from us too soon, but what we learn from that is the most powerful gift that that person could have given to us.

“Some people go too soon to remind us to appreciate life and the ones we love. It’s a shitty lesson.” –My girlfriend, who I know he would have adored and would have been happy to see me happy.

He definitely appreciated his short life and his loved ones, to the fullest.  With him as an example, we will do the same and appreciate our life and loved ones by keeping him in our hearts and taking him on all our future adventures.

He’s smiling right now, he always was smiling so smile with him.

…FOUND

REST IN PARADISE

Bryan Lilly

July 1, 1983 – December 7, 2015